Currently, glass is not collected by the council as part of its dry commingled recycling service, but the council opted to bring in a separate black-box glass collection in December last year at an expected running cost of £140,000 a year.
The overall cost of setting up the service was expected to be £470,000, creating six new jobs. The council operates its collection services in-house and will send the glass to be processed at glass bottle manufacturer OI’s facility at Alloa in Clackmannanshire.
According to council documents, Inverclyde was awarded a £250,000 grant from Zero Waste Scotland split over the course of two financial years, with £100,000 allocated towards the purchase of new containers and the remainder towards procurement of vehicles.
All Scottish local authorities are obligated to provide a separate glass collection service to all households by January 1 2014 under the Scottish Government’s Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012.
As a result, black 40-litre boxes specifically for brown, green and clear glass bottles and jars will be delivered to Inverclyde households between December 1 and 14, before collections start during the weeks beginning December 8 and December 15, depending on property location.
In addition, some flats and high-rise occupancies will receive a mix of kerbside and communal collection containers for the new service.
Bring sites
The council also provides multiple glass recycling bring-sites in the area, which have on average collected under 900 tonnes of glass each year, bringing in an annual net revenue of around £19,000.
The new glass service will compliment Inverclyde council’s fortnightly collection of commingled dry recyclables – including cardboard, cartons, paper, old clothing, mixed plastics, steel and aluminium – in blue wheeled bins for 32,000 households, alternating with residual waste collections in black wheeled bins.
Meanwhile, garden waste is collected in brown bins every two weeks between March and November, and since the end of 2013 food waste has also been collected on a weekly basis in green caddies from almost 21,500 households.
In 2012, Inverclyde recycled, reused and composted more than 55% of its municipal waste. The council hopes the new glass service will help it meet the statutory Zero Waste Scotland recycling rate target of 60% by 2020.
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